1. Technical Field
The field of this invention is nanotechnology and biomaterials.
2. Background of the Invention
A central goal of nanotechnology research is to design and fabricate novel materials with sizes or length scales in the nanometer range. These materials fall into a variety of architectural classes, such as compact clusters, hollow shells, tubes, two-dimensional layers, and three-dimensional molecular networks. In recent years, a wide combination of chemical building blocks and synthetic strategies have been investigated. Numerous specific methods have produced interesting new materials, but a single general strategy for fabricating materials having many different architectures and symmetries has not been developed. Furthermore, most of the recent work has focused on inorganic and organic synthetic materials as building blocks, while biological molecules such as proteins offer some special advantages that have not yet been exploited. As such, there is continued interest in the development of new materials and systematic methods for producing nanostructures, especially using biological macromolecules
Relevant Literature
Various nanostructures and methods for their preparation are described in: Collier, et al., Ann. Rev. Phys. Chem. (1998) 49: 371-404 (compact clusters); Rao, et al., Current Opinion in Solid State and Materials Sci. (1996) 1:279-284 and Kroto, Nature (1987) 329:529 (hollow shells); Iijima, Nature (1991)354:56-58, Ghadiri, Nature (1993)366:324-327 and Ajayan et al., Reports on Progress in Physics (1997) 60:1025-1062 (tubes); Stange, et al., Biophys. Chem. (1998) 72:73-85 (molecular networks); and Li, et al., Science (1999) 283: 1145-1147; Seeman, Trends in Biotechnology (1999)) 11:437-443 (DNA); and Chui, et al., Science (1999) 283:1148-1150 (two-dimensional layers). Also of interest is: Wukowitz et al., Nature Struct. Biol. (1995) 2:1062-1067.
Novel fusion proteins capable of self-assembling into regular structures, as well as nucleic acids encoding the same, are provided. The subject fusion proteins comprise at least two oligomerization domains rigidly linked together, e.g. through an alpha helical linking group, where the oligomerization domains are derived from naturally occurring proteins. Also provided are regular structures comprising a plurality of self-assembled fusion proteins of the subject invention, and methods for producing the same, where the structures may be homogenous or heterogeneous with respect to their fusion protein components. The subject fusion proteins find use in the preparation of a variety of regular structures, where such structures include: cages, shells, double-layer rings, two-dimensional layers, three-dimensional crystals, filaments, and tubes.